I have no idea. And I'm mortified. Brian Dawson April centerfold : They didn't want a full-on erection, so the photographer shot pictures as I went down…giving them the opportunity to select the degree of erection. Neil Feineman : One of the reader-favorite centerfolds called, enraged because there was a three-month period where erections were used, and a model he felt competitive with had a hard-on. I said, "I'm looking at your photograph and you have nothing to be ashamed of. A magazine teeming with naked men would seem to present a golden marketing opportunity: Why not target women and gay men at the same time?
But bowing to the prevailing negative view of gay men — homosexuality was classified as a mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association until — Playgirl aggressively downplayed that crossover in its press and marketing. In its first year, the magazine claimed 94 percent female readership. Over time, that number has been internally described to employees as more like 80 percent Ira Ritter : I can assure you I tried to not have gay men in the magazine.
Neil Feineman: The art directors, [most of whom] were straight, were going to the bathhouses with business cards to get the centerfolds. Randy Dunbar designer, —79 : Photographers like Herb Ritts used to shoot for Playgirl all the time using noms de plume. You weren't out and proud; you were talented and inside. My girlfriend at the time agreed to be in the pictorial.
It was pretty no-holds-barred. The photographer was a client of mine. When I was 18, that was more money than I made in a year. We shot it. He went through the roof and got a sharp attorney who went to Playgirl and said they could not release the photos. They said, "We have a contract," but the attorney said, "I don't care. It has the potential of ruining whatever clean-cut image he has as an actor. I think she showed my dad the pictures and he burned them.
My dad thought the magazine targeted gays. He thought that would be harmful to me. Joyce Dudney Fleming editor-in-chief, : Lambert kept insisting that it was a magazine for women, and really wasn't attuned to the fact that a lot of people perceived it…as a magazine for gay men.
One guy called me up and said, "Money's no object, I wanna fly you out to Europe and do some shots. Christopher Atkins: There was supposedly one shot where I was standing in the pool and it was something about a shadow at the bottom of the pool that made me look "massive" and… [the photographer] was offered lots of money for that slide.
I always thought that it was a magazine for women, but men were trying to buy the slide. Neil Feineman : Management was in massive denial over it.
Closeted men comprised…certainly a very large part of the readership. Subscriptions weren't in people's right names — it was always initials.
It was "M. Ira Ritter: I heard from friends years later that Playgirl became popular with the gay community. I had no clue.
My goal was to create a magazine that reached women. Randy Dunbar: Why was there such a large gay audience if there was gay pornography? I think a lot of guys who were probably still in the closet could go to the supermarket and say, "It's for my girlfriend.
George Maharis: A lot of guys came up to me with [my centerfold] and asked me to sign it for their "wives. Ira Ritter bought Playgirl from Douglas Lambert in and stopped relying on male nudes in favor of clothed-celebrity covers. Following a split with his business partner, Ritter sold his share in Playgirl in After a brief experiment banning frontal nudity in , Playgirl pivoted back to sex and moved from Century City to Manhattan.
The magazine began a tumultuous transformation from what then-editor-in-chief Charmian Carl deemed "a fun, quirky feminist statement" to unapologetic soft-core porn. Charmian Carl art director and editor-in-chief, s : When I first got promoted [to editor-in-chief], Ruderman said, "Congratulations, Mrs.
Carl…I hope you don't think you're gonna make this Cosmo. Charles Hovland prospective photographer, s : Playgirl 's staff changed a lot. One female art director said, "The dicks are too big. Women don't like to look at big dicks. It's like a weapon. Women don't like the whole butt thing.
When I came back, they said, "These dicks aren't big enough. Sher Bach administrative assistant, —97 : Imagine working for a company where the morning topic is, "What's wrong with this guy's balls? Looks like somebody took a hammer to 'em. Charmian Carl: One time, Ruderman came to a postmortem [ editorial meetings to discuss the success of the prior issue ]. He said, "What women want is hairy asses. We're all women here. We don't wanna see that. Trust me. I'll leave it at that. Douglas Cloutier photographer, s—00s : It was a lot of candles and flowers and stuff.
Women don't really care to see it. They would rather read about it. Girls don't wanna see a guy's asshole. Gay guys? Different story. I told her it was unfair that Playgirl was not going in the direction it should after 21 years…Women have never been empowered to feel free to explore their sexuality; they feel dirty if they do.
Women need a place to be able to explore and get excited. I still think we deserve it. I said, "Woman to woman, we should not let this disservice happen. I wish you all the luck in the world. Dian Hanson : They tried to hire me to edit Playgirl in and again a few years later. The guys who ran the magazine, asked, "Okay, what would you do to make girls buy Playgirl? We don't want to make a magazine for men to jack off to! Mainstream magazines have always shied away from black cover subjects for fear of turning off white readers, and Playgirl was no exception.
While a small handful of black celebrities won covers, including L. Law 's Blair Underwood July and Days of Our Lives actor Marcus Patrick September , black male models were usually consigned to small spreads inside the magazine. By the mid-nineties, black men were featured on group covers, including the magazine's popular roundups of college guys.
Dean Keefer photographer, —present : We never found that many handsome black men wanted to pose for the magazine. Budget was the biggest issue about getting models. Douglas Cloutier photographer, s—s : There was never talk about it. Maybe it was the mind-set at the time that black guys weren't as prone to take their clothes off for publication? Charmian Carl : Blair Underwood was very proud to have done it.
I bumped into him a few years later at a [Directors Guild of America] Awards dinner. He was so ebullient and thrilled to introduce me to his wife. I loved that he did not have regrets. Dian Hanson : The notion at all the sex mags I worked for was that blacks were a much smaller demographic than whites.
And if you put a person from any small demographic on the cover — be it black, Latin, or Asian — you risked driving away the majority of white buyers. They just never wanted to accept that fantasy crosses racial lines. I can imagine the older white men running Playgirl thinking, "White women don't want to see that," when deep down they really thought, "We don't want to know that white women want to see that. It limped forward until calling it quits on the print edition in early , amid the industry-wide decline in magazine sales spurred by the explosion of free porn on the Internet.
A year later, the magazine returned with a highly touted cover and layout featuring Levi Johnston, the father of one of Sarah Palin's grandchildren.
The magazine went all-out to promote Levi's cover, hosting one of their legendary issue-release parties. Despite the headlines Johnston's cover generated, Playgirl stopped regular publication on the print edition for the second time, publishing quarterly or less every year since.
In , porn giant Magna Publishing Group acquired the print rights. Gone are the days of stories on breast cancer and marital rape, and interviews with Maya Angelou. Today, Playgirl. Posing nude wouldn't necessarily hurt an actor's career anymore, says Nardicio. And they could also exploit their nudity in far more lucrative or attention-grabbing platforms.
Nicole Caldwell managing editor and editor-in-chief, — : We put on these insane parties where we would invite models to come hang out with everyone, topless. We gave out dildos, condoms, lube. There were lines around the block to get in. Cake companies made us penis cakes. People were running around with vibrators, talking very openly about sex. We have these shackles, "Women aren't to take pleasure into their own hands, women aren't to be sexual about the naked male body," but these women were animals.
Daniel Nardicio vice president of marketing, —present : I have to credit Andy Cohen because he had Levi on his show [ Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen ] and asked him if he would ever do porn. That got me thinking, "He'd be great. I felt like Palin was going around touting this holier-than-thou-family thing, but meanwhile her daughter was having kids out of wedlock—it was a political moment for me that I got to orchestrate. I really wanted to re-create a modern-day Anita Bryant moment.
Greg Weiner photographer,19 95—present : Levi was quiet. I knew he was nervous. It took a long time to get into positions where his penis wasn't showing. Mauris viverra nisl vel enim faucibus porta. Praesent sit amet ornare diam, non finibus nulla.
Cras efficitur magna et sapien varius, luctus ullamcorper dolor convallis. Orci varius natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Fusce sit amet justo ut erat laoreet congue sed a ante. Phasellus ornare in augue eu imperdiet. Donec malesuada sapien ante, at vehicula orci tempor molestie. Proin vitae urna elit. Pellentesque vitae nisi et diam euismod malesuada aliquet non erat.
Nunc fringilla dolor ut dictum placerat. Proin ac neque rutrum, consectetur ligula id, laoreet ligula. Nulla lorem massa, consectetur vitae consequat in, lobortis at dolor. Nunc sed leo odio. Browse Collections About Logon Help. Advanced search. Print Send Add Share. Item Data. Title Gay surfer collection Abstract The collection contains numerous books, magazines, newsclippings, and other ephemera relating to the gay surfer image Notes Scope and Content: The collection contains numerous books, magazines, newsclippings, and other ephemera relating to the gay surfer image in printed form.
Beginning in , the collection documents the increasingly visible appearance of surfers and its connection with gay men and women until through nude photographs, all male physique magazines, and eventually to overtly gay lifestyle publications and advertisements. Resource Identifier: G13 u Postcard Information Format: Mixed Material. All rights reserved.
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